After spending the past two summers as a full time student, I thought I would enjoy the extra free time with my children.  Of course I do, spending wonderful moments with family and friends, but I find a little too much free time on my hands.  During that time, I’ve worked on future bulletin boards, extension games, reading strategies, organizational papers such as transportation home in Excel or creating “Absent Folders”, plus independent professional development through my readings.  I really do not like being idle.  Because of this, I searched Google for online courses to claim some of my time productively.  I found Singapore Math Model Drawing for Grades 1-6.  I’m pretty excited.  This sounds like a really useful class to provide another tool students can use.  Any visual I can provide that gives children access to the relational nature of math will be beneficial in the second step of cocrete:pictorial (or concrete repesentational, but that’s a mouthful): abstract.  With word problems, it’s the organization of the material which can often be difficult.  I think if I can provide a consistent method which can be used throughout various types of word problems such as the bar method, then perhaps it will ease some of the organizational issues.  Both districts in which I worked sometimes used a similar concept of Singapore, using the example of a tape diagram.  It’s a 6 week class which begins in a couple of weeks; I’ll post again at the end of the course.  In the meantime, I’ll enjoy family trips to Schlitterbahn, card games, trail walks, and continued professional preparation.  Today, I’ll seal the stool I painted ages ago and begin another one.  Next summer, I need to teach summer school or begin my graduate classes.